South Africa’s Antarctic research and supply ship, the S.A. Agulhas II leaves Cape Town today to undertake the annual relief of the overwintering team on sub-Antarctic Marion Island.  Aboard will be a four-person team from the University of Cape Town’s FitzPatrick Institute, led by its Director, Peter Ryan.

During the approximately 20 days ashore Peter with MSc student Ben Dilley will continue to undertake transects to estimate densities and numbers of burrowing seabirds (including ACAP-listed White-chinned Procellaria aequinoctialis and Grey P. cinerea Petrels) around the island towards Ben’s thesis “Assessing the recovery of burrow-nesting petrels two decades after the removal of cats at Marion Island.”  Ben spent 13 months over 2012/13 on the island when the bulk of the petrel surveys was undertaken.  They will also be recording wing moult in Wandering Albatrosses Diomedea exulans of known age and breeding status in the Gony Plain long-term study colony and deploying fine-scale three-dimensional loggers on breeding Wanderers to record at-sea behaviours.

Grey Petrel with leg-mounted tracking device at Marion Island, photograph by Ben Dilley

Overwintering team members Stefan Schoombie and Janine Versteegh will replace Alexis Osborne and Vonica Perold, who will return to South Africa next month after 13 months on the island.  Stefan will continue studying aspects of the breeding biology and foraging ecology of the two species of sooty albatrosses Phoebetria spp., which formed the subject of his MSc research, conducted during a previous year’s stay on the island over 2013/14.  He and Janine will also continue observations on long-term study colonies of Wandering and Grey-headed Thalassarche chrysostoma Albatrosses and Northern Giant Petrels Macronectes halli.

As in previous years underway observations of seabirds and marine debris will be made on both the outward and return voyages.

With thanks to Ben Dilley, Peter Ryan and Stefan Schoombie for information.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 9 April 2015

Professor John Croxall CBE, FRS has been recognized by the British Ornithologists’ Union (BOU), UK’s senior ornithological body, by the award of its Union Medal at its 2015 Annual Conference (click here).  John was Head of Conservation Biology at the British Antarctic Survey  (BAS) for many years and following his retirement from BAS is currently Chair of the Global Seabird Programme of BirdLife International.

In the past John has been active chairing committees and working groups of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), and of the Albatross and Petrel Agreement, attending ACAP meetings on both United Kingdom and BirdLife International delegations at different times.

John receives his Union Medal from the BOU President, Jenny Gill

John holds the President’s Medal of the British Ecological Society.  He was recognized by the Pacific Seabird Group with its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008 and was awarded the BOU’s Godman Salvin Medal in 2004.  He is an Honorary Professor at the Universities of Birmingham and of Durham, and is an Honorary Fellow of the American Ornithologists' Union, a Fellow of the Royal Society and is a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, allowing him to add the (post-nominal) letters CBE, FRS after his name.

John Croxall has served as President of the BOU and Chairman of Council of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB; BirdLife’s UK Partner).  These two positions express perfectly how John has managed to marry top-quality research on albatrosses and other seabirds with ground-breaking efforts towards their conservation at the international level.

John Croxall on Bird Island with a Wandering Albatross in his days with the British Antarctic Survey 

It has been a great pleasure for me to have worked with John in several of the above-mentioned bodies over the years.  As they say in cycling circles: chapeau!

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 08 April 2015

David Thompson (National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Wellington, New Zealand) and colleagues write in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series on using at-sea tracking and stable isotope analyses to ascertain where Sooty Shearwaters Puffinus griseus from New Zealand travel to in the North Pacific.

 The paper’s abstract follows:

“Following breeding, sooty shearwaters Puffinus griseus leave New Zealand waters and migrate to 1 of 3 distinct areas in the North Pacific Ocean, effectively exploiting environmental resources across a large proportion of this northern ocean basin.  In this study, we combined electronic tracking technology with stable isotope analyses (δ¹⁵N and δ¹³C) of feathers grown during the non-breeding period in order to evaluate whether isotope signatures can be used to identify specific non-breeding areas used by sooty shearwaters.  A region to the east of Japan was utilised by the majority of tracked birds, whereas others used areas off the west coast of North America.  Stable isotope values of feathers allowed the discrimination of individuals that used each of the 3 different non-breeding areas, and suggested that birds off Japan can be further separated into ‘coastal’ and ‘offshore’ groups.  Our results confirm the utility of using stable isotope analysis, validated by tracking devices, as a tool to determine distribution and habitat use of a long-range oceanic migrant, the sooty shearwater. These results also highlight the resource connectivity between the northern and southern Pacific Ocean basin.”

Sooty Shearwater at sea, photograph by John Graham

Reference:

Thompson, D.R., Torres, L.G., Taylor, G.A., Rayner, M.J., Sagar, P.M., Shaffer, S.A., Phillips, R.A. & Bury, S.J.2015.  Stable isotope values delineate the non-breeding distributions of sooty shearwaters Puffinus griseus in the North Pacific Ocean.  Marine Ecology Progress Series 521:277-282.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 07 April 2015

Henrik Österblom (Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Sweden) and colleagues have reviewed Illegal, Unregulated, and Unreported (IUU) fishing for Patagonian toothfish Dissostichus eleginoides in the Southern Ocean in the on-line journal Solutions.

The paper’s abstract:

“Illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU) fishing is a key barrier for fisheries sustainability and an issue challenging fisheries managers worldwide.  However, there are some innovative examples of how institutions have developed solutions to this problem.  This article describes how the international community, including governments, the fishing industry, and environmental nongovernmental organizations has been able to address the critical challenge of IUU fishing of Patagonian toothfish, or Chilean Sea Bass, in the Southern Ocean.  In the 1990s, IUU fishing threatened to deplete toothfish stocks as well as substantially reduce the number of endangered albatross caught on baited hooks intended to catch toothfish.  Data from interviews, surveys, literature reviews, and official data on estimated levels of IUU fishing illustrates how solutions to these issues were directly dependent on in-depth collaboration between diverse stakeholders.  We illustrate the long process of defining and refining solutions to IUU fishing and show that there is substantial potential for other institutions managing fisheries to learn from the experiences in the Southern Ocean.”

Wandering Albatross in the Southern Ocean, photograph by John Chardine

Reference:

Österblom, H., Bodin, O., Sumaila, R. & Press, A.J. 2015.  Reducing illegal fishing in the Southern Ocean: a global effort.  Solutions 4(5): 72-79.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 06 April 2015